Minnesota being dragged kicking and screaming into merger with tainted South Dakota hospital

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison's office is investigating the proposed merger of an ailing medical giant with the namesake of South Dakota’s richest man, Denny Sanford — the subject of a probe for possession of child pornography. 

AG Ellison has a long history of supporting unions and worker rights. Sanford is a St. Paul native and graduate of the University of Minnesota.

Former Gov. Mark Dayton bluntly told a state Senate committee what he believed was at stake if the Sanford Health and Fairview Health Services controlled the University of Minnesota’s medical facilities after the two health care companies merged. Former Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a Republican, echoed his Democratic successor. Ellison said during testimony Tuesday that his office’s investigation into the proposed merger is still ongoing. But confirmed they have moved into a “new phase” of the investigation, and are demanding sworn statements from certain individuals as part of his office’s investigative authority. Stakeholders from the Minnesota Nurses Association, the MN AFL-CIO and the MN Farmers Union at the hearing all spoke in opposition to the merger. [Dayton calls Sanford, Fairview merger a 'betrayal’ unless U of M control stays in state]

In 2016 then-Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton toured a South Dakota mining disaster calling it "a textbook example of how not to do it." 

Denny Sanford made a fortune in usury bilking borrowers who could least afford financing. His lawyer, Marty Jackley is a Republican who admitted to illegal content on at least one of Sanford’s devices but brushed aside the filthy images as incidents of hacking. Jackley on the rebound as South Dakota’s top fop and the US Department of Justice has declined comment on whether a federal grand jury has convened or if an indictment of Sanford is imminent.

Learn more at the Minnesota Reformer.

Decades of mega-mergers have resulted in nearly unprecedented concentration of corporate power in America. That's been disastrous for workers whose wages are held down by the monopolies that dominate their communities. https://t.co/wsYK3uV902

— Keith Ellison (@keithellison) January 29, 2018

Republicans have voted to make our crisis of plutocracy and unprecedented wealth inequality even worse. They will have to own that vote. Our job now is to activate, organize, and hold them accountable.

— Keith Ellison (@keithellison) December 20, 2017

Mergers like this make it harder for low-wage workers to unionize. To empower workers, we need to renew the American spirit of antitrust. https://t.co/QH7944qV5w

— Keith Ellison (@keithellison) November 9, 2017